The recent proliferation of video cassette players and recorders has created a new market for video taped advertisements and messages. This new market has created an enormous demand for inexpensive and lightweight limited use video cassette cartridges that are suitable for mailing. These cassettes are also suitable for non-commercial recordings such as public service announcements and personal messages sent to family and friends.
Lightweight limited use video cassette cartridges are known in the art. However, prior art limited use video cassette cartridges suffer from several limitations. For example, many prior art video cassette cartridges contain numerous individual parts formed of various materials. The use of such a great number of parts raises the cost and manufacturing time of the cassette cartridges. Additionally, prior art video cassette cartridges are formed of heavier materials, and thus are costly to transport and mail.
A more particular limitation of prior art limited use cassette cartridges is their lack of structural rigidity. Prior art cassette cartridges typically include a cassette shell formed from a pair of mating top and bottom panels. The panels are typically connected by a plurality of support posts or columns. A pair of video tape reels are positioned between the panels for winding video tape. This prior art construction suffers from several limitations. For example, to provide space for the video tape reels, the support posts have to be spaced a sufficient distance apart. This results in a finished cassette cartridge which is weak and flimsy. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, lightweight video cassette cartridges are often mailed and thus are exposed to rough handling. The support posts of prior art video cassette cartridges commonly break or dislodge when subjected to these forces. Moreover, the support posts are difficult to align when mating the top and bottom cartridge shell panels. Thus, these prior art support posts significantly add to the cost and time of manufacture of cassette cartridges.
Another limitation of prior art limited use cassette cartridges is that they include complicated and costly reel spring mechanisms. As discussed in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,881, titled LIGHTWEIGHT VIDEO CASSETTE CARTRIDGE, the video tape reels of cassette cartridges are subjected to an upward force from the VCR drive spindles which tends to push the reels upward towards the top panel and out of alignment. To compensate for this upward force and to keep the video tape reels in alignment, various reel spring devices have been developed. Although these prior art reel springs are effective, they are complicated, costly and too heavy for use in limited use video cassette cartridges which must be inexpensive and lightweight. Copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/001,670 provided a novel reel spring design which overcame this particular limitation.
The limitations described above prevent advertisers and consumers from making full use of lightweight limited use video cassette cartridges. Thus, there is a need for an improved lightweight video cassette cartridge.